Two Become One

For the longest time, I have associated my value as a person to worldly things. As a matter of fact, I still do. When I was in school, my identity was “the good grade girl”, “the smart girl”, “the responsible girl”, and it felt great. I would always show up for class, study hard, achieve good grades, and the congratulations of my teachers, peers, and parents for doing so. I was an academic junky. In college it was the same; on top of classes I would volunteer in a research lab and do long shifts just for the love for science. Then, in 2023, I graduated college and landed a job in a research lab as a research assistant. Everything seemed perfect. I had a job that would pave the way for an eventual strong PhD application and I would have many years of academic success ahead of me.

After almost a year into the job, I was having a mental breakdown and I found myself completely hating bench research. My life was suddenly upside down. Everything I knew about myself was gone and the future I once envisioned was no longer what I wanted. I ended up switching jobs and shortly after that I accepted Jesus into my life. Now, it would be great to say that being baptized and reading the Bible on a daily basis (almost) on top of the job change solved everything, but that would not be true. Today, despite having a job I enjoy (for the most part), I find myself struggling to find direction and purpose. I sometimes feel sad and frustrated for not recognizing myself outside of a demanding academic environment in which I am appreciated in function of the amount and quality of the work I produce. And although I still have a job in research, I don’t feel it is up to the standards I once set for myself and therefore I feel like I failed.

Like me, maybe you also feel like your life should look a certain way, or that you should be doing certain things in order to recognize your value. However, the Bible tells us over and over that our value is not found in our career, our salary, our looks, the amount of papers we publish, or anything this world can offer us. Our value is not found in anything but in Christ alone. Romans 5:8 says that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God values us so much that he sent his son to die for us. Our identity and worth come from being adopted in God’s family: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1). And therefore, in God we also find our purpose: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10). Our purpose is to share the Gospel and to do good works, which don’t save us, but are the fruit of God’s work in us and are meant to honor him by reflecting Christ in the world. This does not mean that we should not have goals tied to a career, a job, a hobby, family, but we should try to honor God in everything we do and pursue. And most importantly, we have to remember that no matter what we do, our value is already settled in Christ, and when life feels uncertain, think that God has already a design for your steps.

If like me, you struggle to find direction and purpose, you can start by doing what the Bible tells us to do. Show love to everyone around you, share the good news of the Gospel, help the poor and the sick in your community, join a church, have a relationship with God, and pray a lot for His guidance. With time, He will show you the plans He has for your life and how you can serve the kingdom. In the meantime, let’s make sure we prepare our hearts, for when the call comes, we are ready to accept it and embrace it.

With love, S.